Today is Uncle Lou's Birthday.

I wanted to take the time to remember Uncle Lou and all the things he did for me when I was little and (not to forget) when I was in the Navy and stationed onboard the USS Canopus in Kings Bay, GA (as well as any other time in my life I got to see him). When I was little, I always remembered the way Uncle Lou would fix the worlds best turkey stuffing. It was something I always looked forward to as a kid. The way it smelled, and especially the way everyone made a big deal of the stuffing. I know that later on when he didn't have all day to make it, it was from a box but I never said anything but that "It's Uncle Lou's and it will always be the best stuffing in the world". I also remember Aunt Katty saying when I was in the Navy and stopped in to see them that "the reason everyone made such a big deal out of Lou's stuffing, is because that was the only thing he could make that didn't taste like crap". Those were her words and everyone was laughing so hard, I could never tell if it was the truth or bullcrap. Uncle Lou was in the Marines in WWII. He was in the Pacific and even though I heard him speak of the situation, I never heard what happened while he was over there. He would not speak of it (or at least, not with me when I was a kid). Even When Uncle Lou progressed in years, I still remember his voice as when I first remember it. It was a rather raspy and deep voice. One that would make you feel happy when ever you heard it. There always seemed to be a joke coming on no matter what the day or situation. When I was out to sea and Bridget and I were living out from the sub base, Bree would go there and eat lunches and sometimes dinner with them. I always felt safer knowing she knew both my Uncle Lou and Aunt Katty. When she would tell me what was going on with them, it seemed as though years had passed but they were still talking about the same tomatoes and pole beans. It was always something in keeping with their way of living. I almost forgot about the blue crabs. When I was little, we would visit and Uncle Lou and I would go crabbing. Take his crab traps down to the pier on St. Simons Island and tie pieces of chicken to the bottom and lower them in. Now that I think of it, I imagine that the chicken Lou used probably cost more than buying the crabs in the end, but that does not matter now. We would pull up crabs inside and sometimes hanging outside the basket. He would let them scurry around on the pier and I would run around and grab them. Tossing them into the big basket to take home and eat. The end of those days would be spent tossing the crabs into a pot of boiling water on the grill outside and waiting for them to cook. Uncle Lou and Aunt Katty for most of the time I was little were smokers. They were the type that would be glamour smokers. Always holding their cigarettes in movie star poses, and washing the smoke down with an icy beer. They both quit later both smoking and the beer later on in life. But both still retained that raspy voice I will never forget. The only things I know at this moment for history is that he graduated from Batavia High school way back when. He also attended the University of Kentucky, Lexington, where he learned to be a pharmacist. Even though Uncle Lou (Louis Fishback) is gone, I wanted to take the time to remember him and all the things he did for me. I will always remember him.